


What We Are Isn't What We'll Be

by muchlessvermillion



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hemospectrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muchlessvermillion/pseuds/muchlessvermillion
Summary: Feferi wasn’t sure if there had ever been a time she hadn’t known.Knowing was not the same thing as understanding.Feferi Peixes at different stages of her life, learning the world and her place in it on her way to her pre-destined fight against the most powerful woman in the universe.





	What We Are Isn't What We'll Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for the TRULY fantastic Feferi Zine, which is completely free and over 60 pages of all-Fef content. 
> 
> The whole thing can be found and downloaded right here! 
> 
> https://feferizine.tumblr.com/post/183594467234/without-further-ado-here-is-the-entirety-of-the

Feferi wasn’t sure if there had ever been a time she hadn’t known. 

For the first sweeps of her life, she moved more comfortably underwater than she did on shore. Land was groggy, slow. Gravity pulled on her, left her unbalanced and weighed down, and she didn’t like leaving footprints in the sand to show where she’d been, hated carving a path for someone else to follow when she could move through the water without even making ripples if she tried hard enough.

Feferi was far from the first and far from the last Alternian wiggler to be taught how to hold a weapon as soon as they grew arms to do it with, starting underwater long before she ever pulled it from the waves. The trident was like an extension of her arm, after so many sweeps. Chubby fingers that could barely fit around the handle grew into something longer, surer, stronger. There was no ‘wiggler’s first weapon’ version, not for heiresses. The trident was a part of her birthright as much as her horns were, as much as her teeth. It had always, always been waiting for her, before she was even hatched. It had been waiting for her because throughout Alternia, other people were waiting for her, too. Because by her own volition or someone else’s, she would have to fight, no matter what else she chose. Everyone fought, here.

Not everyone fought the Empress. But not everyone had the capacity to _become_ the Empress, either, that questionable honor that hung over heiress’s heads like a guillotine.

Feferi practiced with a weapon because it was expected of her, before she even understood violence, before she had ever really seen it with her own eyes.

Feferi wasn’t sure if there had ever been a time she hadn’t known.

Knowing was not the same thing as understanding.

Territory marking was subtle and strange underwater. There was space in the ocean like there wasn’t on land, broad tracts unused and untouched, everything blending together if you were in an unfamiliar space.

Feferi had never been sure if seadwellers were more territorial because they had so much space, or if they had become seadwelling because they were territorial. A brief check on the internet made it clear that most other people didn’t know, either, though she hadn’t known how to look it up until years after she had first started wondering.

The ocean had landmarks just as distinct as the roads and signs that lined the land-bound cities, but they were much less likely to have writing telling you where to turn and which way to go. It was about scent, and pheromones, discerning which trails were nights, perigrees, sweeps old and which were fresh and new. There were abandoned structures all across, especially closer to shore, set into rocks and made out of sunken ships, often half above the waves and half submerged. One couldn’t tell, at a glance, if their owners had died, or moved, or made it to adulthood and been sent off-planet. People didn’t often move into previously used hives until the old scents had faded to nearly nothing, until it seemed safe to assume no one was coming back to claim it. The oldest ones had kelp growing up through them, the wood rotted within, metal rusting at the edges, because no one had bothered to maintain it.

Learning how to navigate the subtleties of underwater territory marking took years. Most seadwelling wigglers didn’t deal with it so early, because most seadwelling wigglers weren’t heiresses, which meant they were more likely to be raised on or next to the ocean than under it. They got to dip their toes in a little at a time, aware of which slice of shore was theirs, which ship they circled.

Feferi was gifted the entire sea and told to explore.

She was young, and eager, and had never encountered another troll outside of the caverns. Her lusus had told her to be careful, in that whispering way she had that resonated through your head, but her lusus always told her to be careful, and so far it hadn’t meant anything. Not really. There wasn’t anything scary about the ocean. Seaweed tickled her fingers, her toes. The current rushed like it had somewhere important to be. And, most importantly of all, brightly colored cuttlefish darted just out of reach of her grasping hands, sweet and wriggly and not as cold as her skin. She went too far.

She didn’t see the older seadweller until he reared in front of her, with all his teeth bared and a rattling hiss resonating through his thorax, the kind of noise Feferi couldn’t even get her body to make yet. Feferi was young enough to not pose much of a threat -it would be sweeps before her eyes filled in, she was still on her first set of fangs- but often enough that meant nothing at all. The older troll swiped at her, a warning, a little bit of hurt to prove he’d kill if he had to, and Feferi froze solid, something terrible and icy dawning in her gut. She didn’t move away.

It was only when he saw the color of the blood oozing slow from her arm that the other seadweller turned tail and sped away, snatching his claws away from her as if he was the one that had been hurt. Feferi still couldn’t move for a long moment afterwards, as her shallow wound clouded the water pink. When the feeling came back to her limbs, she realized she was crying; she could only tell by the burn in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, because the actual tears couldn’t be felt when there was ocean all around her.

“You coulda died,” said a voice from close by, in the strange bubbly accent that seadwellers adopt for speaking underwater, and Feferi whirled to face it, her hands coming up to defend if she needed to. What she saw, when she looked, was a boy around her age, thin-boned and colorless save for a bright lock that floated on the top of his head. He didn’t look all that interested in attacking her. In fact, he was half hidden behind the lip of a submerged cavern, one of his hands hooked in the curled tail of a seahorse lusus that tossed its head at her. The boy’s eyes darted fast from her face to the blood in the water. “That won’t do at all,” he added, like it meant anything.  

The boy’s name was Eridan, and he and his lusus brought her back home. Feferi cried the first half of the way, and laughed the second, even though Eridan wasn’t really trying very hard to get her to.

He navigated this part of the ocean like he could see every ill-defined edge he was meant to skirt. He guided her around shiny-pink coral reefs, stopped her from taking the easy route that might cut across someone else’s mark. He and his lusus knew shortcuts, through the caves, under sunken bridges that had once crossed the water in a different way. The trip back seemed much longer than the trip there had been. Once, Eridan paused and pointed upwards, through the filtered moonlight that broke through the waves, far above, to the shadowy outline of a massive boat.

“I’m up there,” he said. “If you were wonderin’.”

When she was finally back in the familiar coil of her lusus’s tentacles, being fussed over, Eridan nodded like his duty was done.

“Wait!” Feferi called, before he could escape. “Do you want to hang out, maybe?”

It was getting towards dawn, and Eridan needed to be back in his coon on the lowest level of his ship before the sun broke horizon. But they agreed she would come the next night, after she finished receiving the older troll that brought Gl'bgolyb fresh lusus carcasess several times a perigree. Feferi never liked the blood, the way it moved in the water, the way she felt like she could taste it in the back of her throat when her gills took something in. But she knew her lusus had to eat, could almost feel it itching under her skin when she went too long without and got too hungry. It was like Feferi was hungry, too. And she worried. The troll that brought Gl’bgolyb her food was nearing off-planet age, and Feferi wasn’t sure who would replace him once he was gone.

But things had a way of working themselves out.

\--------- 

"Adjust your grip, your stance looks weird from over here," Eridan said, and Feferi's fingers slid down, watching him as he watched her. She could tell when it looked right by how his face twitched. Eridan’s face was still small and somber. You wouldn’t know he was an orphaner now unless he told you. If that was even what you called it, these nights-- Feferi knew that was what it had been called in the old times, when adults were on Alternia, but then it was a _job_. This was basically a hobby. No one was paying him. But it wasn’t exactly a normal hobby, either. It wasn’t as if you could form a club around it, or collect trophies like collecting stamps. There wasn’t a special cabinet for severed lusus heads. And Gl'bgolyb liked the heads best, anyway; that would never do.

“Betta?” Feferi asked, and her legs had slid into the right position before he even nodded, sweeps of practice making it easy. She thrusted her trident, spun it, stabbed again. Eridan paced like a caged tigerfish to follow her while she circled the training dummy, his ears twitching like he was contemplating something big.

(He hadn’t grown into his earfins yet, which had a growth spurt before the rest of him. Feferi had called him Dumbo until he got genuinely self conscious. She still felt bad.)

Feferi faced up against the dummy, forged sturdy and crafted to be approximately the size of an adult troll. When she hit it again, hard as she could, it shuddered, shaking all the way up to its indistinct, untrollish face. Even without eyes, it seemed to stare back at her.

She lowered her weapon.

“You _gotta_ stop doin’ that,” Eridan said, and Feferi went for her water bottle as if that was the plan all along, taking a long drink and then splashing some against her drying gills. She would be fine _without_ it, just as able on land as long as she switched to breathing through her lungs, but it was annoying. Why be uncomfortable when you didn’t have to be?

“I keep thinking about the buoy from that silly game,” she said, deftly changing the subject. She’d brought this up before, but it was still bothering her. “The angry one! I mean, I’ve never met anyone who wrote in gray, before. What do you think he is, reely?”

“Gotta stop doin’ that, too.” Eridan responded, and Feferi ignored his rolling eyes. “I mean, does it _matter_?”

“Just answer the questfin!”

“Ugh, definitely some no-count lowblood. If he was higher he wouldn’t hide.”

“Whale, why does he have to hide?”

“Ashamed, probably. An’ I can’t blame him.”

“Do you reely think?”

“Well, yeah,” Eridan said, sounding like he was taking extra care not to say ‘whale’. He was so pissy tonight! “I’d hide too, if I was somethin’ so weak.” She looked at him, feeling sort of strange about that answer, and he looked back, expectant. Feferi was taller than him already. They were both aware if she ever wasn’t taller than him, it wouldn’t be for long.

“Whale, ocray,” she said, finally, stretching her arms above her head to feel the pull of muscles in her arms, the way her body was strengthening and shifting. “I guess we should train a little moray, and then maybe a break?”

“You’ve had a break already,” Eridan grumped, and just like that she knew they’d be watching a movie before the hour was up.

\---------

Feferi had already been waiting when the video call alert flashed onto her husktop screen.

“Sollux!” she chided, before the image had even finished resolving. “You said you wouldn’t be late this time!” But when the picture fully loaded, Sollux was bleeding, golden dribbles drying tacky underneath his mouth and nose. “What happened?” she asked, immediately abandoning the scolding. It took a moment of confusion to figure out exactly what she meant, but when he did, he just rolled his eyes and swiped his shirtsleeve over his bloodied face.

“It’s nothing,” he said, and really seemed to mean it.

“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “You’re bleeding, Sollux!” He grinned at her through the grainy lens of his camera, showing bloody teeth.

“Yeah, well. You should see the other guy.”  

“There’s another guy?” Feferi asked, her voice going shrill. “You were in a fight?” Sollux seemed to be catching on that she wasn’t going to let it go or find it as funny as he seemed to think it was, and he gave her a lopsided little shrug, looking unsettled.

“Wasn’t much of a fight,” he said, which just sounded to Feferi like a yes.

“But _why_?” He looked at her like she was speaking East Alternian. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the blood still smeared on his dull gray skin.

“I don’t fucking know, FF. Ask the dude that started it. He probably wanted a gutterblood two beat up on and wasn’t exactly expecting me two be the most powerful psionic on the goddamn hemisphere.”

“You didn’t even know him?”

“Why the fuck would I know him? All our friends are online.”

“That’s naut--!” She broke off, frustrated. “Why do you keep acting like this is normal?” It was his face, then, that told her, more than anything he could’ve said. “...This is-- This _is_ normal?” He shrugged in her direction, abruptly preoccupied with scraping some dried honey off his keyboard. “ _Why_?”

“Lowblood life, FF,” he said. “I don’t expect you two get it."  


\--------- 

Aradia was dead.

Tavros was… hurt, badly hurt. And Aradia was dead. Feferi would never get to speak to her again. There would be no more late-night giggling over trollian, no more weird-bad-fascinating stories from Aradia’s grave robbing expeditions. They’d never meet in person. Feferi would never get to compare the size and warmth of their hands, like they had talked about one night when they had wondered about how much bigger and colder Feferi might be when Aradia was on the exact opposite side of the hemospectrum. Aradia was dead, and Aradia was gone.

Vriska was hurt, too, but (and this seemed wrigglerish to say) she had _started_ it, so Feferi wasn’t feeling as bad for her as she might’ve otherwise. She thought she might be angry at Vriska, really. She wasn’t angry at her friends often. She was angry now. She was maybe a little bit furious. But mostly she was-- this was what mourning felt like, wasn’t it?

People died every day on Alternia. But the people who died usually hadn’t been her friends. It felt different, somehow. It felt bigger, and harsher, like she had dived too deep too fast and put pressure on her lungs before her gills opened up. And the pressure just kept mounting.

She couldn’t go to Eridan, who would still play up like he didn’t care because it was easier for him that way, because he was supposed to like Vriska, and liking Vriska meant thinking she was right, and if he had to admit she wasn’t right he’d have to admit he was wrong about her. She knew him well enough to know that without even having to be told. And-- fine, whatever. If that worked for him. He wasn’t who she was angry with. But she couldn’t go to him.

So Feferi had heard the news and swam to the rubbery coils of her lusus to cry, like she hadn’t since she was a wriggler. And Gl'bgolyb welcomed her with open tendrils, wrapped her up within them to pet at her hair and push the tears from her eyes even though it should have been impossible to even know they were falling. Feferi swam in until she was completely enveloped, cocooned in white tentacles to the point where she couldn’t be seen from outside. She didn’t want to be found, right now.

She couldn’t understand why this had happened. How this had happened. How her friends had heart each other so much, what they wanted, what anyone was getting from this.

“Why?” she asked, aloud, knowing her lusus probably wouldn’t answer, even if she knew. “Why does it have to be like this?”

She cried herself hoarse that night, until she felt sorry for herself and sorry for everyone, sorry even for Vriska. Sorry for Terezi, who might still be culled before ascendency if her blindness was ruled too much of a liability and not enough of an advantage. Sorry for Karkat, who was so angry and so scared and so wrapped tight, whose blood color she still couldn’t guess at, whatever it was, who had never grown out of hiding. Sorry for Tavros, who hadn’t deserved it and would never get to be without it. Sorry for Sollux, who had to fight even when he didn’t know he was doing it, who was probably hurting worse than she was, who she hadn’t been able to contact for hours. Sorry for Eridan, who kept playing pretend even when she could see his pusher weaken and knew he didn’t want to. Sorry for Kanaya, who didn’t know how to help. Sorry for Nepeta, who was too frightened to FLARP and now had good reason to be. Sorry for Equius, because she knew he would be sad, even if he would say it didn’t matter. Sorry for Gamzee, even, though she had never seen much phase him and didn’t know if this would be the start. She was sorry for all of them. She was sorry for everyone. She was sorry for all of Alternia.

Why did it have to be like this?

_Did_ it have to be like this?

\-------- 

Feferi advanced, her trident fully balanced in her hand, rolling with the movement of her body, like a wave gathering momentum before it crashed onto shore. ‘Like a part of you,’ Eridan had said, over and over. ‘It’s gotta be like a part of you. An’ not just in the way where you’re used to it.’

She thought she might have managed it by now, as she and Eridan faced off, his sword tight in his palm and his eyes flickering over her as he watched for her next attack. The training dummy had been beat to all hell sweeps ago, and they hadn’t bothered to replace it. A live target was much better practice. It moved, for one -- but mostly it was the way that you couldn’t predict it. The way you had to learn to watch, to listen. She had sparred more than just Eridan, had tried different styles, searched for different hints in different faces. There was always something. No one, no matter how experienced, how old, no matter what they fought with, or how good they were at poker… no one was entirely without a tell.

Eridan had stopped growing the instant he hit eight sweeps, but he was quick on his feet and with his blade. He was used to ranged weapons, so he liked a safe distance, got panicked if you pushed too close. But he was clever, and vicious, and he knew her moves almost as well as she knew his. Feferi wasn’t fighting him because it’d be easy. It wasn’t an ego boost that she needed.

What she needed was all the practice that she could get.

While his seabound hive rocked in the water, they played advance and retreat. He moved, she followed. He sliced, she jumped. She hit, he countered, not-quite-fencing while both their weapons gleamed in the light from two waxing moons. Eridan never held back with her, never faltered to spare her feelings, and she loved him for it. She loved him enough to push, and push, and push, to make every step in this dance count, to leave him pinned and pained up against the deck with enough in it that he might falter before he got back up and tried again.

With a subvocal roar rumbling through her thorax, and a full set of seadweller teeth bared, and every part of her that screamed POISON -- DO NOT EAT showing, Feferi lunged, and she looked her best friend dead in the eyes as she did it.

\--------- 

Feferi wasn’t sure if there had ever been a time she hadn’t known.

Knowing didn’t mean understanding. Understanding didn’t mean being ready.

Or at least, it hadn’t. But she was older now -- in fact, she was old enough.

The question left to answer was this: would she get any older?

The Condesce liked to televise these things. The official ones. Another dead heiress on planet-wide screens. Job security. A vote of faith for the groupies. Ad money, money that she owned and operated and curated anyway, funneling right back into her silk-lined pockets. Soulless cameras staring, unseeing, to deliver the news.

It’d be scary, if she was someone else.

No. That wasn’t right. It was still scary. It was terrifying. It was the biggest thing she’d ever done, and it could end up being the biggest thing she ever would do. The floor had been cleaned until it shined, but behind Feferi’s eyelids, she could almost see the pink smears past contenders had left behind, the only mark they ever made on the world. In the back of her pan, she could very nearly hear her lusus whispering to be careful, like she was a wriggler again, exploring outside of her territory.

But she wasn’t a wriggler. Not anymore. And Feferi knew what she was fighting for. Maybe the other heiresses had fought for something too, but Feferi knew they had mostly fought not to die. You could see it in their faces when they walked into the arena, like they were already sure they were headed to execution, the way they only struggled long enough to last a few precious extra microsweeps, to make the most of time they didn’t have. It wasn’t the same as what she was fighting for, not really. And she knew that even the firmest of the dead could never have been as resolute in their faith as she was tonight.

The people she was fighting for would be watching. All of Alternia would be watching -- it was mandatory programming. But it was a select few that would be waiting for a result most of the planet couldn’t even fathom.

Feferi’s trident, newly sharpened, was heavy in her hand. Heavy like a promise, or heavy like a conspiracy. Her jewelry had been left behind, traded for utility and protection and any tokens her friends had pressed into her hands before she left. (Cloth that breathed and moved like nothing else for her leotard, from Kanaya. Something sharp and biting around her neck from Vriska. Secrets from Terezi, strength from Karkat, lightning in her veins from Sollux. From Eridan, a knife that hid so thoroughly in her shoes that she could barely remember it was there. The Empress fought dirty. Feferi would too.)

A voice boomed on a loudspeaker, and the door she held herself behind began to open. When Feferi stepped forward, the fear was still there, but buried beneath surety like concrete, and iron, like the people she knew.

Before her there were lights, and people, and last minute money being exchanged. There were bookies in the arena. The Condesce always bet on herself.

The thing she hadn’t bet on was Feferi Peixes.


End file.
